Pages

August 31, 2006

G134: Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 4

Woo-Hoo!

Mike Lowell hits a three-run home run in the first inning -- the first three-spot for the Red Sox since the second inning on August 23 (70 innings ago) -- and it suddenly feels like we're rooting for a major league team.

With the game tied 4-4, two outs in the seventh and Dustin Pedroia on first, Alex Cora hits a fly ball to the warning track in right. Alex Rios drifts back, and after the ball hits off his glove, he bats the ball into the right field stands for a two-run home run. !!! Boston leads 6-4 and Jonathan Papelbon slams the door.

Who knows -- maybe this is the first victory in what turns out to be a historical comeback?

David Wells -- who had the team's best ERA in August (2.65 in five starts) -- has cleaned out his locker and is at his apartment awaiting further instructions.

Meanwhile at the Fens, it's the Battle For Second Place. With Sexy Lips on the hill. (gulp)

Some final wallowing in the 2-7 road trip: The Sox scored 19 runs while allowing 43. They hit .198 (58-for-293) overall and .136 (8-for-59) with runners in scoring position. That averages out to fewer than 7 AB per game with a runner on second or third.

[A]fter scoring three runs over the first two innings of last Thursday's game in Anaheim, Boston tallied just 11 runs over its final 70 innings on the trip, only once posting more than one run in an inning -- two in the sixth against Seattle on Sunday, homers by Ortiz and Mike Lowell, the team's only hits that day.

22 comments:

I was getting pissed at the number of LOBs early in the season. I don't completely buy the 'high team OBP means high LOB' bromide. The Sox have been hitting 15-20 points lower with RISP than their team average most of the season. The only time they were better was during their 16-2 NL run. While obviously my 'eyeballing' will not pass sabermetric muster, I really don't care. There's something to this. Hockey players might say they're 'squeezing their sticks harder' when they come up with men on.

Come on aboard I promise you You won't hurt the horseWe treat him well, we feed him wellThere's lots of room for you on the bandwagonThe road may be rough, the weather may forget usBut won't we all parade around and sing our songs and wave our flagsA magic kingdom, greet us all hello, greet us hello, greet us hello

Good for you, Devine, for going to the games. I've been reading about how people are giving away Sox tickets...front-running frauds, if you ask me. This is when the team needs a full park of cheering fans most. I'll truly be disgusted if one championship turns Sox fans into fair-weather Yankee fan clones.

besides, Red Sox fans should actually want the Yankees to beat up on the Twins and White Sox. If the red sox can cut their wild card deficit in half (only 3 games)by mid-september then who knows, it might make the last couple weeks of the season exciting.

I-girl: I missed that post, I guess, but I couldn't disagree more. Yankee fans are spoiled; they don't appreciate the easy ride they've had; they can't stand fair competition; they cheat (and Jeffrey Meier wasn't the worst) and they root for an organization that has been a parody of a capitalist bully for 80 years. Then there's the really offensive Yankee "heroes" that their fans will admire as long as they win: the thugs, like Billy Martin; the drunks; the jerks like Munson,Reggie,Wells,Unit, ARod, Leyritz, Sheffield; the cheats, like Sheffield and Giambi. And the owner, of course, who's a cheat, a bully AND a jerk... just like Jake Ruppert and Del Webb.

One is stuck with one's home team, but I don't know any Sox fans who cheered for Buddy Leroux. Yankee fans have been corrupted by their team. I synpathize, but I won't pretend that they're like everybody else.

The teams have totally different histories, and of course that effects the fans and their behaviour. Yankees fans have been spoiled, that's very true. Red Sox fans have (or at least had) all the angst and bitterness of the long drought and terrible heartbreaks, which caused a host of highly unbecoming behaviours.

But you can pick out this instance or that instance, and make practically any point you like.

Most Yankee fans "cheer for the uniform", just like most Sox fans. They don't purposely cheer for "jerks" (in the eye of the beholder, of course), cheats or drunks, and certainly don't cheer for the owner!

You can point to Giambi or Sheffield (many Yankees fans despise both of them as people, but they're not going to show that to a Red Sox fan - why should they?), I can point to Bernie Williams and Mariano. We can play that game all day.

Allan and I grumble about Mike Timlin's loathesome (to us) worldview every time he takes the mound - but we still want him to win. For that matter, I never found Ted Williams a particularly admirable human being, despite his rehabilitation as the avuncular elder statesman in his old age. And on and on.

Nah, I'm not interested in re-opening it especially either, but I don't think your arguments are on point. The entire Yankee organization has operated on a classic "the ends justify the means" ethic for about a century. With occasional lapses, that has NOT marked the Sox culture, The fact that there are admirable and heroic Yankees is indisputable, but it does not excuse the disproportaionate number of less admirable "heroes"..like Giambi...who have been completely embraced. If Barry Bonds had to go to the AL to continue his career, which AL team is most likely to take him? Three guesses, and the first two don't count. Would Sox fans tolerate Bonds? You can answer that one too.

One other thing: if you really know about Williams, you know he was quite complex. His work for the Jummy Fund, his support of Negro League players, his generous tutelage of young hitters and his military record show a man of charity, courage and kindness. Plus he was undeniably loyal: the Yankees tried to hire him twice, and he refused despite the significant money involved.AND he was a lousy father and husband and an unbearable egotist. In sports hero terms, however, Ted was way, way on the positive side. Nobody should be ashamed of admiring Ted Williams.

I'm aware of Williams' complexity, but I don't add up the factors the way you do. For example, his military record is, to me, a strong minus. Re-upping to go kill Koreans is not admirable, in my book. I also don't care one iota about team loyalty.

However, your comment mainly compares, selectively, the Yankees and Red Sox organizations. I was only speaking of their fans. Few, if any, fans choose and stick with a team based on past management practices. It's kind of a ludicrous idea.

My central point is only this. Both Yankees fans and Red Sox fans are maligned by their opposite number, but there are intelligent, loyal and decent fans on both sides, and piggish, classless, fair-weather fans on both sides. That's all.